I Have No Idea What I'm Doing -- The Snap Wilson Dynasty

[Snap Wilson]

Okay, finally having set some time aside, let's play some TEW2010. Believe it or not, I have purchased TEW games before, but have never gotten very far into them. I intend to make a concerted effort of this, and this dynasty will serve as sort of a journal as I figure out what the heck I'm doing. You get to play along by offering me helpful hints or else laughing at my failures. Either way, there's entertainment value!

 

I've read through the help file, which, mildly problematically, appears to be for TEW2008, but I think I get the gist and I'll keep it open as I play in case I don't know what something means.

 

I start a new game, with all countries active. I choose The Grand Avatar as my avatar as I don't want to be a wrestler myself. Apply Pre-Set Rules is set to None. I uncheck "Show stats as grades rather than numbers" (I like detail, plus I'm sure Excel will somehow be involved). For my talents, I add five to each of the four categories, making me balanced overall.

 

Time to pick a promotion... I know I want to be in North America, and I don't want to be a feeder promotion. After reading through all of them, my mind keeps going back to tiny little All-Canada Pro Wrestling who are 36th out of 36 in popularity. Nowhere to go but up! The 230-pound weight limit thing is a little weird, but maybe as the promotion progresses we can get rid of that rule. Or else, I can go on to bigger and better things. ACPW, I choose you! Let's see if we can drag this freighter out of the Maritimes.

[Eidenhoek]

Okay, finally having set some time aside, let's play some TEW2010. Believe it or not, I have purchased TEW games before, but have never gotten very far into them. I intend to make a concerted effort of this, and this dynasty will serve as sort of a journal as I figure out what the heck I'm doing. You get to play along by offering me helpful hints or else laughing at my failures. Either way, there's entertainment value!

 

I've read through the help file, which, mildly problematically, appears to be for TEW2008, but I think I get the gist and I'll keep it open as I play in case I don't know what something means.

 

I start a new game, with all countries active. I choose The Grand Avatar as my avatar as I don't want to be a wrestler myself. Apply Pre-Set Rules is set to None. I uncheck "Show stats as grades rather than numbers" (I like detail, plus I'm sure Excel will somehow be involved). For my talents, I add five to each of the four categories, making me balanced overall.

 

Time to pick a promotion... I know I want to be in North America, and I don't want to be a feeder promotion. After reading through all of them, my mind keeps going back to tiny little All-Canada Pro Wrestling who are 36th out of 36 in popularity. Nowhere to go but up! The 230-pound weight limit thing is a little weird, but maybe as the promotion progresses we can get rid of that rule. Or else, I can go on to bigger and better things. ACPW, I choose you! Let's see if we can drag this freighter out of the Maritimes.

 

I was going to yell at your for trying to usurp my diary. Then I read that line.

 

[Timber]

ACPW is a fun little promotion. You get a lot of quality guys to work with and once you get bigger, you'll have the US right below you to grab guys. Should be fun. Good luck.

 

And Stay Thirsty my friend.

[Snap Wilson]

Thanks, guys.

 

Looking over the roster, here's who we have:

 

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/5752/acpw01.png

 

A bunch of young guys (with the exception of Sky King). Some good, but very green talent. Everyone is on PPA so that means I can fire them any time I want, right?

 

I notice that we perform the "Modern" style of wrestling, which the manual says thus:

 

"The element of having faster-moving, edgy, flashy matches and angles for the benefit of the modern short attention span."

 

You hear that, young people? You have short attention spans. It seems we have a roster suitable for this style of wrestling... but wait, is that what the people of Canada want?

 

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/9205/acpw03.png

 

No, they want wrestling with characters and storylines and skits and such, and frankly, almost all of our guys rock the mic about as well as Al Gore. Hey, we may have a niche, but I don't want to stay an under-the-radar, only-the-cool-kids-watch-us sort of promotion. The cool kids have attention spans the size of Cheetos, apparently. They also don't have lots of money, and that's what I want.

 

One thing we don't appear to have is an upcoming show scheduled. We have a TV show, but it's "Off The Air." Does that mean we used to have a TV show? Will it come back on the air at some point? I have no idea how this works.

 

I advance it a day just to get our owner goals out of the way and see what I'm up against.

 

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1240/acpw04.png

 

Goal #1: We currently have $50,000 so as long as I don't lose $30,000 over the next two years, I should be okay.

 

Goal #2: Hey, that's my goal as well.

 

Goal #3: Fine by me.

 

Goal #4: Honestly, I'm flexible about this, but sure. I don't really need the headache.

 

Goal #5: Only Jay Becker is currently below a 35 in Basics (he's at 30) but if he can't improve that in 170 days, I won't want to extend him anyway.

 

Time to set some of my own goals:

 

Long term

• Transition to the more Traditional/Mainstream style favored throughout Canada.
  
• Upgrade our talent gradually, possibly by hiring some veteran wrestlers for our youngsters to work with.
  
• Increase our exposure.
  
• Make enough money to expand our operation.
  

 

Short term

• Don't go broke.
  

 

That's pretty much it. I need to get a show scheduled and see how many people attend and how much money we pull in, so I have some idea of what amount of expenses I should limit myself to each show.

 

Coming up... our first show!

[CQI13]

This looks like it will be good. I will be reading...

[Guest codey]

So far I'm entertained. Keep your show in the same vein and you have a rookie of the month nomination from me!

[Snap Wilson]

Thanks, folks. High praise!

 

Okay, so I have one of those creative meetings just to see what it's all about. Most of it is information I figured out on my own, but hold on... Hidden Gems?

 

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/3017/acpw05.png

 

A list of people my "creative team" (actually, there doesn't appear to be anyone on my creative team, so this must just be the voices in my head) think would be good for the promotion.

 

These guys aren't really "hidden," and we already have a full roster, but hey, I can get some practice with this whole negotiation thing, and there's no time like the present to look into potential upgrades. I decide to open negotiations with Jay Chord, as he has some good performance attributes that most of my roster are sorely lacking. I also open up some negotiations with some non-wrestling talent, as our referees and announcers really aren't anything special. If I can get away with paying the same amount for someone better, I'm gonna do it.

 

We also need some upcoming shows. I really have no idea of how to go about this, so I look at what the other small promotions are doing. Most of them are just doing one event show per month. I figure that's as good a place to start as any.

 

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/4995/acpw06.png

 

Thankfully, the game doesn't penalize you for having lousy event names. I wasn't really given an option of where to schedule the thing, and I still don't know how many people are expected to show up, so I don't know how much money we'll make and therefore have no idea of how much money we can afford to spend to ensure a profit. Where do I find this stuff?

 

I advance book the first match which will be El Diablo vs. Jamie Atherton, a title bout (although Advanced Booking doesn't give me the option to set that). It says the Heat for the match is 18. So... is that good? I have no idea.

 

My other singles title holder is Mario da Silva, but it's a Midcard title and he's a Main Eventer, so what the heck... I have him vacate it. We'll have a title tournament. One thing I do is up the titles from a max weight of Lightweight to Middleweight. I don't want to limit myself unnecessarily, and this will be the first step to transitioning to a more mainstream style of wrestling.

 

I advance another day and add another bout, which is Jayson Van Pelt vs. Mimic, which also gets a Heat of 18. I add Sky King vs. Jay Berger which is a Heat of 9. Should I keep it? Does this work on average match heat or is it cumulative or what? The help manual does not live up to its name here.

 

I'm waiting to see if we can get Jay Chord on the card before I organize the rest of the matches, as that would change everything.

 

Another day passes and Jay Chord turns us down. We've also failed to hire any of my other prospects. I see how it works now. Get bigger, THEN start hiring people. Okay.

 

I advance book the rest of the matches and our card looks like this:

 

 

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/1907/acpw07.png

 

You can feel free to make predictions, although I'll be honest--right now, *I'm* not sure who will win some of these matches. I'll figure out a long term plan soon, I'm sure.

[Snap Wilson]

I sim up to the show and get to the booking screen, and it's time to pick a venue, and holy crap, ELEVEN fans are expected to show up. ELEVEN? Really? Unless they're spending $1,000 a piece, is going to be the shortest dynasty ever.

 

So, here's how the matches went:

 

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/2914/acpw08.png

 

"In an awful match that was completely devoid of heat, Dermott Ayres defeated Marc Raisin by submission with a Montreal Crab." Ouch. Rating: 19

 

Next I had an angle where Jamie Atherton beats down El Diablo backstage as kind of a teaser for the main event. The crowd hated this as well. Rating: 7

 

http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/5278/acpw09.png

 

"In an absolutely wretched match that was devoid of action or heat, Topher Smith defeated Malik Cash in 11:38 by pinfall with a Gopher Suicide Dive. Rating: 14.

 

Ouch ouch ouch. Malik apparently wasn't in very good shape for this.

 

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1207/acpw10.png

 

"In an extremely poor match, Sky King defeated Jay Becker in 12:20 by pinfall with a Sky King Splash" Rating: 28

 

Becker was visibly tiring by the end. Are these matches too long?

 

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/9855/acpw11.png

 

"In an extremely poor match, Dagger defeated Kirk Drury in 12:04 by pinfall with a Dagger Kick." Rating: 31

 

Drury visibly tired towards the end. I think my matches are either too long, or the intensity needs to come down a bit.

 

Another Angle, a Mimic interview where he taunts Jason Van Pelt. Rating: 24. The crowd didn't dig it.

 

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/8171/acpw12.png

 

Da Silva won, of course. This one bombed. Only a rating of 19, with both wrestlers gassed at the end. I also apparently screwed up my championship tournament, as it didn't register the other matches as being part of it. My road agent Art Lawson actually popped up in a window to tell me that Shufflebottom needs to be booked in shorter matches. Okay, Art, okay!

 

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6812/acpw13.png

 

Finally, a good match! "In a bout that had a good crowd and some decent in-ring action, Mimic defeated Jason Van Pelt in 15:33 by pinfall while using the ropes for leverage." Rating: 32

 

So wait, this rated one point higher than Dagger and Kirk Drury at 31, but that was "an extremely poor match." The crowd didn't dig the ending. Okay, I got it, keep it simple.

 

And finally...

 

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/5815/acpw14.png

 

"In a bout that had a good crowd and some decent in-ring action, El Diablo defeated Jamie Atherton in 18:18 by pinfall, illegally using the ropes for leverage. During the match we also had Heather B distract El Diablo. El Diablo makes defence number 1 of his ACPW Junior Heavyweight title." Rating: 25

 

Alright, I didn't have this set for a tainted win. I guess the wrestlers will do whatever they want if you don't tell them what to do. Okay, I know that now.

 

The final rating for the show was a 25, and it tells me that it "should be considered a success, and that it increased our popularity." Which means more than 13 people should show up next time. Yay!

 

See, I told you guys, I have no idea what I'm doing! But I'm learning. I'm learning.

[Snap Wilson]

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3163/acpw15.png

 

Well, huh. Thanks. I'm not sure I realized that our promotion was *this* small. How have they stayed in business up until this point?

 

Here's the problem, in a nutshell:

 

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/7606/acpw16.png

 

A few more shows like this, and we're going to go broke. I don't know what to expect by our next show, but this ain't good.

 

I attempted to make some changes to our product, but the owner, Daedalus Buchinsky, blocked all of them, including lowering the expected match times. Fair enough, but I'm going to book them for lower times. Our wrestlers were dying out there.

 

Some good...(?) news. CZCW accepted a working agreement with us. They're the most likely group I'll probably go after similar wrestlers for, and it's nice to know any new acquisitions won't be cut off with exclusive agreements.

 

I start pounding the pavement, looking for good wrestlers with performance skills. It's our weakest area, so the experience will help us there.

 

Meanwhile....

 

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2403/acpw17.png

 

Yikes.

 

I let a couple of days go by, and -- WE SIGN SOME WRESTLERS!

 

The one I'm most excited about is Davis Wayne Newton:

 

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/7155/daviswaynenewton.png

 

A terrific, young all-around wrestler who also carries a 25 popularity throughout Canada. Also...

 

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/5383/bobcasey.png

 

This smiling gentleman, who you may know as Bob Casey. At first glance, he doesn't seem like ACPW material. He's old (34), he's a middleweight, and not really a flyer, but he's a solid technical performer who can wrestle a good match and put some of our guys over. Also, he carries a 16 pop in Canada, which again is better than anyone on the roster except for Davis Wayne Newton.

 

To make room on the roster, I release Jay Becker.

[Snap Wilson]

The good news--our second event, Valentine's Day Massacre, featured a huge improvement in the quality of wrestling. Here are the match rundowns:

 

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/2313/acpwvdm01.png

 

Now consider that our main event in our last match was rated a 25, and this isn't too bad!

 

http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/7933/acpwvdm02.png

 

Okay, so this one was kind of a turd. Alistair, you're disappointing me. BUT...

 

http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/1218/acpwvdm03.png

 

A 32 rating! Officially a new record! And oh yeah, we hired Remmy Skye. I forgot to mention that.

 

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/669/acpwvdm04.png

 

And we top it! A 35 rating!

 

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/5505/acpwvdm05.png

 

Only a 31 rating, which is kind of disappointing for these two, but still, I think both are pretty solid.

 

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2492/acpwvdm06.png

 

A very solid 36, even with Mimic off his game. And finally....

 

http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/1835/acpwvdm07.png

 

Our two new acquisitions bring the noise, giving us an outstanding 40 rating to finish it off. Very nice!

 

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/2599/acpwvdmfin.png

 

Very solid event for us, from a wrestling standpoint. None of my matches had much heat, and I'm not sure the best way to generate that.

 

AND NOW THE BAD NEWS...

 

Ten people showed up. Ten. Ten. Freaking TEN.

 

And here's the real problem:

 

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/2316/acpwfinances.png

 

So, two shows and we've already burned through 20% of our total capital. The end of the month returns haven't come in, but I doubt the sponsorship/merchandise/etc. is going to make up for it.

 

SO I'M ASKING FOR HELP...

 

What can I do to start getting people to show up? How do I get out of this mess? What happens when you run out of money? Am I screwed? Am I really screwed? HELP!!!

[Rayelek]

1) If you want to hold shows every month, don't use everyone. Go for the longer matches with the people who can and rely on that.

 

2) If you aren't locked in to a show every month, take a month off and just rake in the sponsership money.

[Eidenhoek]

1. [Don't] read my Booking 101 diary. It's a hell of a lot funnier seeing you do unintentionally foolish things, but I have a few gems of wisdom in there. Most prominently:

 

2. You need to use about half the current roster that you currently utilize per show. At your size, the only way you can make money (or minimize losses) is through your sponsorship, which sucks (due to your product type, which you can't change). Use fewer people.

 

3. Use the higher-paying guys more times per show. Give Sky King 2-3 matches. He's crazily good performance-wise for your size, so if you're going to use him at all, give him a few matches.

 

4. Lose enough money and you go bankrupt.

[borman_48]

With ACPW you will lose money, even using about half your roster. Ive usually stuck to running shows every other month until I reached Small. You wouldn't necessarily need to stay on the schedule, but you will definitely need to take a couple months off.

[Snap Wilson]

1. [Don't] read my Booking 101 diary. It's a hell of a lot funnier seeing you do unintentionally foolish things

 

Thanks a lot.

 

So, where is this Booking 101 diary, just so I know where not to go and accidentally read it?

[Eidenhoek]

Okay, it actually doesn't have "Booking" in the title. Oops.

[Rathen4]

In my humble opinion, you're simply running too many matches in a card for this level of ACPW. In my dynasty for it, I ran three matches per card at the start, then four, and then expanded more as finances secured themselves.

 

You're simply using far too many people!

[Snap Wilson]

Thanks, folks! I understand now. Fewer matches, not once a month. I'll need to tinker some.

 

I find it a bit unrealistic that a promotion would start with only a dozen people coming to the show. I actually employ more people than have shown up at either show. How has ACPW stayed in business to this point? Put it this way: if I started a wrestling promotion and only 13 people showed up for our first show, I'd find another line of work.

 

The other thing is, taking a month off while sponsors still keep paying you... er, for what exactly? I thought they were sponsoring the shows that only a dozen people are showing up for.

 

ANYWAY, fewer matches, fewer shows, more disgruntled employees. I'll get on that when I get home, right after I continue Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's nascent career with the Charlotte Bobcats.

[Astil]

Why would an ex-Miami Dolphin's RB be playing for the Charlotte Bobcats. He'd be on the Heat for sure.

 

Also, groovy thread. Enjoying it.

[Blake Trask]

The thing is, ACPW have only been around for a very short period of time (four months at most), and their owner is effectively a glorified fan, so they have little to no name value - heck they're the only Local promotion in the data at game start, if I remember rightly. The challenge with them is taking them from the bottom to as high as you can make it - something pretty reminiscent of what's known as a 0/0/0/0 game (trying to take a promotion with no popularity, no momentum, no prestige and no money to the top).

 

So few people are coming because ACPW is basically bush league. You don't have the name value to draw in the fans just yet - especially since, if you look at ACPW's default roster, they are some of the least known people in Canada and pretty much the database, period. I'm pretty sure your MAIN EVENTERS have F+ overness.

 

No it's not 100% realistic, but it's how starting from the very bottom of the pile is implemented. Once you get a little more popular, your gates will start to become slightly more respectable, and you should be fine financially once you hit Small. The very tiniest stages are always difficult to negotiate - the important thing is to just budget correctly. $50,000 should keep you well in it.

 

Also, if you haven't already, go to your 'business' screen in the control room, then finances, and then prices. Raise them by $4 across the board. It's the highest increment that won't see you have people be turned off by high prices and start refusing to show up.

 

 

Oh, and as for sponsors... well, my favourite description for them in TEW is one of Eidenhoek's: "They're magical money wizards that see things they like about your promotion and pay you for it"